Léon Spilliaert in the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
By Dr. Cathérine Verleysen, curator of the nineteenth century, KMSKA
Today, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) has seven works in mixed media and an etching by Léon Spilliaert in its collection. The core pieces of this multifaceted ensemble were put together by Walther Vanbeselaere (1908-1988), Chief Curator of the Antwerp museum from 1948 to 1973.
Vanbeselaere’s acquisition policy focused on collecting the broadest possible overview of modern Flemish and Belgian art. He collected important ensembles of artists he considered key figures in successive generations. To place this art in a broader context, he also strived to afford the museum’s collection an international character.
Walther Vanbeselaere applied these criteria to purchase five works by, in his own words, ‘late-symbolist’ Spilliaert during the 1950s. Initial purchases were acquired from the widow of the artist, who died in 1946, and later at auction. The focus was essentially on pre-war representations of female figures (Woman by the Sea (1909) and Girls on a Dune (undated)) and self-portraits (With Blue Sketchbook (1907) and With Easel (1908), two Masterpieces (Topstukken) now protected by Decree). A third self-portrait (1915) was added to the collection in 1979 through a donation by art collector and promoter Maurits Naessens (1908-1982).
More recently, KMSKA’s Léon Spilliaert collection was supplemented by the etching Les Flèches et la Faux (The Arrows and the Scythe), the artist’s contribution to the 1935 illustrated collection of stories Contes by Horace Van Offel (1878-1944). Finally, the hitherto absence of Spilliaert’s beloved landscape motif was remedied in 2018, thanks to the Lens-Ghesquière bequest which includes Landscape Under a Red Evening Glow with Migratory Birds (1919).
